“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”– Mark Twain
I haven’t posted in a long time, which makes me feel a little ashamed. It has been a very busy time, and I didn’t feel I had the energy to keep blogging when I was so busy doing. There was so much to say – I didn’t know where to begin! But I will try and give a summary of what’s been happening since the last post in March 2012.
Our opening weekend took place while a music festival was going on in our village. The week before I took some days off from my work (9-5 job as a receptionist) to prepare. On the Monday, we did a huge shopping for stock in our nearest city, Inverness, picked up C’s friend Tim and took him to Skye where he did much valuable work to help us before opening.
Together, the three of us spent the rest of the week cleaning, scrubbing, tidying the van, wiring plugs, removing old vinyl lettering, baking, cooking and making signs. I have fond memories of us painting signs in C’s dad’s shed one night, wearing overalls, with Bob Dylan blaring out of the stereo. I didn’t really appreciate Bob Dylan before; now, every time I hear Shelter from the Storm it makes me think of that buzz, of working together for the same cause. There was a great sense of communitas that night, which lasted the whole week.
We had planned that the van would be powered by a generator for the weekend, and had asked our friend M to fix up the one that came with the van. He did a great job, and got it working fine for us. We used it to power a trial run at the van, where we asked some friends to come along and try our bacon rolls. C & I are both vegetarians, and weren’t at all used to frying bacon, so we were nervous about it. We didn’t really even want to serve bacon, but knew it would be popular with the campers, so we thought we’d better try it.
So on Wednesday morning, we made coffee and fired up the griddle for our bacon rolls. The owners of the café we used to work at came along, as did some more friends and family. Everyone was positive and encouraging. At the time my brother was filming a documentary about the music festival, and wanted to interview me so he was also there with his film crew trying to get some shots. Then, two workmen arrived, one in shirt and tie and the other in a high-viz vest. When they first appeared, we thought were going to be environmental health officers – we got quite worried they would want to inspect the van! Turns out they were just passing, saw the van from the road, and thought they’d stop for food. They wanted bacon rolls, and although we told them we weren’t actually trading yet, we gave them their rolls and got our first ever five pound note in return. That was nice, if a little unexpected. Still, it was good to see that we could pull in the punters when we weren’t even trying!
Friday was our first proper day of being open. I can’t remember the day that clearly now, as it was a complete whirlwind of stress and running around!
We’d done an awful lot of preparation for opening, yet on our first day we were supposed to open at 10 and we still managed to be running late. As we had advertised on Facebook and word of mouth had got around, two ladies from the village arrived for food and we weren’t ready yet. We were still trying to make sandwiches and get the van ready to open. It was stressful! But we still served the people who came. They must’ve thought we were like headless chickens – we were – we just lacked feathers!
When we eventually got the hatch open and were open for business, the generator stopped working, so we had no electricity. We managed to get it working again, thanks to the handyman on the campsite. Then, the coffee machine exploded. That gave us a fright, and C & I began to get a little hysterical. We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. We felt as if nothing was going in our favour. Apart from the weather – it was a beautiful day. But nothing else was working out. At one point, we closed the hatch to try and compose ourselves. Then another friend knocked on the door, looking for lunch. We had loads of cakes, sandwiches, soup, wraps and drinks ready, so really it was ok. We later borrowed some cafétières to make coffee and got a couple of thermos flasks to store it in. We opened the hatch again.
Blasta Van, March 2012 (We did actually have a few more customers than this, we just didn’t have time to photograph them!)
Day two was a little better, as I remember. In the morning, C went off to the Co-op, our local supermarket for more supplies. Typically, as soon as she left, people began to emerge from their tents looking for bacon rolls. There was a bit of a rush, and when she came back there was a queue of people at the van. Concerned, she rushed back inside the van to help me out. And we managed. The only hitch was when I forgot to put an egg in a lady’s bacon roll and she’d come back to ask for it; but I must have known she’d wanted an egg, as I’d cooked an extra one and was about to give it away to someone else!
By the end of the day, we felt quite good. So good that we decided to go to the festival at night to hear the music. We hadn’t purchased tickets as we couldn’t afford one. I had spent all the money in my bank account on cleaning supplies, food for the van, and electrical equipment. That is no exaggeration, I actually had no money. C didn’t have a job at the time, and was penniless like me. Ok, so now I’ve justified our sneaking into the festival, have I?! Please say yes.
We went with C’s friend, Hannah, who was also skint and keen to sneak in for free. We started to think it wouldn’t be possible, after we jumped over a fence and approached the festival site from a different direction. A steward came to speak to us and pointed us in the direction of the ticket office. We pretended to go there, then stood outside for a few minutes to think about what to do next. I thought there was no way of getting in to the marquee – there were stewards at the entrance, checking the tickets. Suddenly, Hannah, seeing a gap, said “Let’s go!” and took confident strides to the marquee. C followed, and I went last. I was sure we’d be stopped, but somehow we weren’t. We walked straight in and made our way through the crowd towards the music. We were laughing our heads off, like naughty schoolchildren when we realised we’d got away with it – I was still expecting to be thrown out/arrested/beaten up/put into prison… We weren’t, and the night was so much fun. We got to see some great acts and had a fantastic evening.
Sunday was our last day, and by then we were getting the hang of things. We were exhausted, but we kept going, serving food and drinks to the campers until late afternoon. Then we went back to C’s, counted our takings from the weekend, then I left and went home to recover. We had done it, and it felt exhilirating.
On his travels, he met up with a couple who were serving up delicious, unusual veggie food from a food trailer. I suddently thought, maybe I could do something like that. I just hadn’t really realised you could serve food that wasn’t burgers and chips from such a trailer.
cafedreaming 